Per Mertesacker is entrusted with the job of collecting fines from Arsenal players in breach of club discipline but the German may find himself going cap in hand to manager Arsene Wenger for his place in the team.

Sam Allardyce: How can you scrap a system that gave us David Beckham?

I am putting my mind to this column having had a long day at the ­independent tribunal to decide on the finance involved in Robert Hall moving to Bolton.

Often no one emerges from these tribunals fully satisfied but the decisions have been made and we wish Robert all the best at his new club and move on.

Looking back to Tuesday’s Capital One Cup tie against Cheltenham I was very pleased with how things went. We fielded a different 11 to the team who started against Newcastle and although the score was 2-1, I thought we won comfortably — it could have been four or five.

These games are invariably difficult. The teams from lower divisions do not often have the chance to play at the different environment of a bigger club and they want to show they can cope, both as individuals and as a team.

Ravel Morrison grabbed most of the headlines and showed the home fans a glimpse of what he can do.

It is still early days but his season on loan at Birmingham has benefited him greatly. People have asked me how he has matured. Well, apart from the fact he is a year older — not a teenager any more — the biggest reason for this is that he played regularly in the Championship at Birmingham and that has matured his game.

He came back having experienced first-team football for a considerable amount of time after being unable to play in our senior team and instead being in our Under-21 development squad.

We are all glad he has progressed. There is a long way still to go but his improvement is very encouraging.

That year at St Andrews has brought him up to speed in terms of how to utilise his talent and, as far as we are concerned, we are looking to see him turn the hope of a good pre-season into a reality.

The loan system has been and still is a success story. At West Ham alone, players such as Mark Noble and James Tomkins have benefited from loan spells while the best example of the system working surely has to be Andros Townsend.

From memory I think he’s been out to nine clubs but now he’s back at Tottenham, in their first team and just been picked for the England squad.

We should never dismiss the importance of the loan system. It helps everybody, the bigger clubs who want to give their young players regular experience and the smaller clubs who take them on and reap the benefit.

There have been calls to abolish the system but if that happens, where do we develop players?

There are plenty of others who have developed this way, with perhaps the outstanding example being David Beckham who went out to Preston from Manchester United to learn more about the game.

As far as Ravel is concerned, he has experienced the joy and satisfaction of being picked regularly for a club’s first team. The problem today is that there are many young players who have aspirations of joining the top clubs.

If they do not get loaned out, many do not make the grade, become disillusioned and fall by the wayside. They have never experienced being selected for a first team.

Ravel showed some of his capabilities against Cheltenham, especially when he did not have the ball, which was really pleasing.

I am generally happy with our squad now. Last season, as the countdown to the end of the transfer window

was in full swing, we were busier,

signing Matt Jarvis, Andy Carroll and Yossi Benayoun. We are not quite as needy now.

This time I do not expect that volume of late action. As David Sullivan has pointed out, we are near our limit in terms of what we can spend to keep within the new Financial Fair Play rules, unless we sell.

Ricardo was wrong to reveal his grievances

Our transfer business is largely done unless someone goes out. We are comfortable with our squad although someone who is obviously not happy is Ricardo Vaz Te, who has asked for a transfer and made his dissatisfaction public.

I always expect players who believe they should be playing more than they should to conduct themselves in a professional manner.

They should explore the options internally but he has not done that. He has made it public which, I believe, is not the correct way to go about things.

Having said that it is inevitable that, when you have a squad of 25 and not everyone is playing as much as they think they should, one or more think they should move on.

From a media point of view, the last hysterical day of the window must be terrific but as a manager, you do not want to be involved too much, if you can help it.

£86m for Gareth Bale? That's mind-blowing

One transfer everyone expects to happen is Gareth Bale to Real Madrid. Tottenham seem to have bought freely in the knowledge they will be able to recoup the staggering fee of £86million for the player.

Let’s just say it again — £86m!

That’s a mind-blowing amount of money but Real have a reputation for splashing out and their president, Florentino Perez, knows he has to satisfy the club’s demanding fans.

Cristiano Ronaldo cost £80m but he was a much more established player than Gareth, who has had one fantastic season.

I would say the Welshman, in reality, had been doing the business far longer than that, with the example being his terrific Champions League performances during the 2010-11 campaign.

Whether we will ever see the £100m transfer is debatable, especially with the Financial Fair Play rules.

Looking forward, how can any club, even the biggest, square a £100m bid for a player having regard to their annual turnover?

Wenger knows the true story

The stinging criticism for Arsene Wenger, following that first-game defeat by Aston Villa, has faded a bit after three successive wins.

It was all about the money which many fans felt Arsene should be spending on improving his squad but only he and the club’s board really know how much cash is available.

Everybody else can speculate but no one knows except them. The reality is that the manager has to have more ambition than anyone else, otherwise the club does not function.

Pardew's lack of respect

Finally, I must say I was very disappointed with Alan Pardew’s comments following our 0-0 draw at Newcastle last weekend.

After the game, he said: “West Ham did their usual, played the long ball and tried to slow the game down a bit.”

I thought that showed a real lack of respect for me and, more importantly, my team.

My advice to him would be to concentrate on his own job and forget about making comments about someone else’s.